Sunday, August 31, 2008

Britain's pro-Muslim immigration Labour government is essentially encouraging the Muslim conquest of London's East End, where the 2012 Summer Olympic Games will be held, creating a security nightmare of ... Olympian ... proportions.

The Tower Hamlets area, particularly, is fast becoming a bastion of Islamist extremism and violence, with barabaric burkas and hideous hejabs (Islamic headscarves) proliferating like mushrooms on a lawn after a summer rain. Bearded Muslim men openly support Al Qaeda and call for more terrorist attacks in the US and Europe.

There are even "no-go" areas, where police dare not tread for fear of sparking Muslim riots. Twice in the recent past, two Christian priests, Canon Michael Ainsworth and Reverend Kevin Scully, were brutally attacked by muslim gangs. They were attacked for being Christian in what Muslim thugs believe should only be a Muslim area.

In this latest case, a good samaritan came to the aid of an 18 year old girl who was under threat from a Muslim gang member. The thug and six of his fellow Muslim gang members chased and stabbed the passer-by. The man, who valiantly try to help a young woman in distress, was then vicously stabbed by the gang in the neck, chest back and arm.

Police are (not even half-heartedly) looking for six Asian men. One was described as having gold teeth, wearing a grey tracksuit and was driving a blue Nissan.

POSTSCRIPT: A female preacher in a woman-only congregation at a British mosque recently said: ''We are not going to be like animals . . . or to be like the homosexuals, God save us from that, you understand? We have to take the judgment, the judgment is to kill them.'' The mosque is the subject of a second installment in an investigative news series, called "Undercover Mosque," which seeks to expose religious extremism being taught at Muslim institutions within the UK. The news piece is set to air on Britain's Channel 4 on Monday, Sept 1.

EDITOR'S COMMENT: Contrary to the claims of both US President Bush and (Muslim-born) Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama, Islam--i.e. organized Islam, which has basically become synonymous with the clerical fascist creed called Islamism--is the enemy of Western civilization. Islam is inherently intolerant and violent, a reactionary, repressive death cult that seeks to impose its medieval mentality, laws, and customs on non-Muslims and secular, non-practicing Muslims everywhere. Recent history has shown that it is impossible to peacefully co-exist with Islam/Islamism. Consider that in 2007 Islam and Judaism's holiest holidays overlapped for 10 days. Muslims racked up 397 dead bodies in 94 terror attacks across 10 countries during this time... while Jews worked on their 159th Nobel Prize.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Iran is escalating its war of words with the United States and Israel.

A senior Iranian military commander has warned that a "world war" would erupt in the event the US or Israel launch an offensive against his country, the official Iran News Agency reported on Saturday.

"Any aggression against Iran will start a world war," deputy chief of staff for defence publicity, Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri, said in a statement carried by IRNA.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Foreign Confidential analysts confirm that Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria are preparing coordinated ballistic missile strikes against Israel--and bombardment of US bases across the Middle East. Iran has vowed to "burn Tel Aviv." Should Israel's main population center come under massive attack with significant civilian casualties, the Jewish state would not hesitate to use any and all weapons--including nuclear-tipped missiles--to defend its citizens.

RedState is featuring a video of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler laughing and joking about Gustav, a category 4-5 hurricane that is expected to make landfall in the US in a few days.

Fowler says the hurricane's threat to New Orleans--it could hit the city during the Republican National Convention--demonstrates that "God is on our side."

Fowler made the comment in a conversation with Democratic Congressman John Spratt of South Carolina (5th District) during a flight from Denver, Colorado, to Charlotte, North Carolina, following the Democratic National Convention. A passenger captured the exchange on video and posted it on YouTube. Click below to screen it--an eyewitness video gem.

Click here for a bio of Fowler, and here, here, and here for background information concerning a ... foul ... fundraising scandal in which he was implicated and about which he testified before a US Senate committee.

Fowler is a familiar type to many journalists and pundits, someone who has lived off a political party--in Fowler's case, the Democrats--for most of his adult life.

UPDATE: Gustav, the hurricane that Fowler finds so funny, could be more dangerous than Katrina. It could also deal a devastating blow to oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico, which produce 1.3 million barrels a day of oil--about a quarter of US production, and 7.4 billion cubic feet a day of natural gas, which is 14 percent of the total.. Hurricane Katrina in 2005 closed 95 percent of regional offshore output and, along with Hurricane Rita, idled about 19 percent of US refining capacity. Is Fowler so fanatically anti-oil, so partisan and so fouled up, that he finds this amusing?

Already taken aback by their Presidential candidate's embrace of natural gas (and nuclear power) and apparent waffling on offshore oil drilling, the environmental extremists fear that Barack Obama will soon soften his stance on tapping Alaska's awesome oil reserves--an unpardonable sin, according to the zealots.

Republican John McCain's surprise Vice Presidential pick, Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, is both a conservationist and a strong advocate of responsible oil production and exploration. With gasoline prices still painfully high--and millions of Americans in northern regions of the country worrying about paying for home heating oil during the coming winter season--Palin is expected to shake up the national energy debate in ways that will work against the anti-oil Democrats.

The whole notion of ending the nation's so-called oil addiction, to use Obama's pet term, is a dangerous delusion; modern civilization, as Palin knows, runs on oil, and will continue to run on oil for at least the next 20 years.

POSTSCRIPT: Palin is also a threat to the Democrats' fanatic opposition to gun ownership and self-defense. She is a hunter, and a life-time member of the National Rifle Association.

Russia's top leaders are said to be stunned by John McCain's selection of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate--a virtually unknown political personality with no known foreign policy experience.

The reason for the Russian reaction, diplomatic and media sources in Moscow say, is that the Kremlin, in keeping with its political culture and traditions, sees a conspiracy afoot--against Russia.

"Picking Palin as Vice President feeds Russian paranoia," our correspondent reports. "The Russian leadership jumps to the conclusion that McCain is sending them a signal, choosing a conservative from Russia's neighbor and former territory across the Bering Strait [before the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867]. The Russians believe this means McCain is willing to risk a new cold war to defend Georgia, Ukraine and Poland against Russia's resurgence."

The Kremlin may also interpret Palin's presence on the Republican ticket as proof that the US intends to compete with Russia for Arctic oil resources. The Alaskan governor is a strong advocate for domestic oil production; and her husband is an oil worker.

During the Cold War, the 53-mile-wide Bering Strait marked the border between the US and the Soviet Union. The island of Big Diomede, Russia's eastern-most point, is only 2.4 miles from the US island of Little Diomede. During the Cold War, indigenous peoples on the US and Russian sides were prevented from crossing the border, which became known as The Ice Curtain.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Democratic Party insiders say former Vice President Al Gore, the fire-breathing global warming zealot and charlatan, who parlayed a slideshow about a hoax--manmade global warming--into an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize, is burning mad that the party's Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, has embraced natural gas and nuclear power, as well as alternative energy.

Gore, sources say, was "stunned" by Obama's inclusion of the conventional energy sources in his acceptance speech call for an end to the country's so-called oil addiction.

The European Union has scheduled an emergency summit of heads of government Monday to discuss what actions to take against Russia following its decision to recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia--two Moscow-backed separatist regions in Georgia.

The 27-nation European Union is split between those countries, such as the Baltic States and Poland, favoring tough action, and other countries such as France, Germany and Italy resisting punitive measures against Russia.

For the sake of EU unity, summit members will probably use strong language, but forego tough measures. French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said Friday that EU leaders will not decide to impose sanctions.

Countdown to conflict--between Israel and Iran. The war is coming--a matter of when, not if.

The Israeli newspaper Maariv reported Firday that Israeli leaders decided, in top-level strategic discussions three months ago, to do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from having nuclear bombs.

The paper's veteran political reporter Ben Caspit writes: "Preparations for an Israeli military option intended to stop Iran's nuclear program are underway."

"The debate between those who believe in doing everything, including a military operation, to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, and those who think we can live with Iranian nukes, has been settled," Caspit writes.

He asserts that "if the ayatollahs' regime does not fall in the next year, if the Americans do not strike militarily, and if the international sanctions do not break the Iranian nuclear plan, Israel will have to act forcefully."

Iran Installing More Centrifuges

In related news, Iran is operating about 4,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges and it is installing several thousand more, the state news agency IRNA quoted the deputy foreign minister as saying Friday.

"There are nearly 4,000 centrifuges working in the Natanz enrichment facility... another 3,000 centrifuges are being installed," IRNA quoted Alireza Sheikh Attar as saying in an interview with state television.

In July, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran had up to 6,000 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the process at the heart of Western fears that Tehran is secretly trying to build nuclear weapons.

Last week, a senior official with Iran's atomic energy agency said the country had started designing its second nuclear power plant.

Iran is still building its first nuclear power plant with Russia's assistance. The 1,000-megawatt plant is located in the southern city of Bushehr.

Iran Could Hit Back With Missiles

Iran could hit back at Israel with missiles if the Jewish state attacked it, and could also rely on allies in the region to strike, the commander of the Islamic Republic's Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday.

He was clearly referring to Syria--which seems to have faked interest in reaching a peace agreement with Israel--and Hezbollah, Iran's Lebanese Shiite proxy.

The terrorist group is armed with advanced Iranian-supplied missiles capable of reaching targets deep inside Israel, according to a report in Friday's edition of the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi.

The report quotes senior Arab sources who claim that the Lebanon-based militia plans to use the missiles in the event Israel decides to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, or if the United States launches an offensive that has the potential to ignite a regional war.

Hezbollah Boasts About its Missiles

The sources added that the new missiles have a range that Israel "cannot even fathom," and that the new arms are the "surprise" that Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah alluded to in his recent statements to the public. The report says the missiles are armed with a precision-guided mechanism that increases their accuracy.

Hezbollah has stockpiled new arms in recent months, including anti-aircraft systems, that it has deployed in the mountainous regions of Lebanon. Israel has repeatedly warned that positioning these missile batteries in Lebanon would be viewed as "a step that tilts the balance."

Israeli officials say this would justify a preemptive strike on these weapons systems.

Iranian defense experts are also reportedly in Lebanon in an effort to assist Hezbollah in developing anti-aircraft capabilities.

Iranian leaders have repeatedly vowed to "burn Tel Aviv" and bombard US bases in the Middle East.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Good news. Cooler heads are clearly prevailing in Russia. Contrary to hysterical punditry in the United States, there won't be another cold war. The Russians are "not interested," as the following Ynet article confirms.

Hopefully, Washington will stop antagonizing and criticizing Russia, and will even join with Moscow and Chhina, as we have suggested, to win the war against radical Islam.

The Syrian leader was stunned when the Russians slapped him in the face. Putin and Medvedev’s answer to his request was “not interested.” They have no interest in embarking on a new cold war. The slap was even worse because the Russians refused to sell advanced missiles to the Syrians, and added a few conditions: Firstly, they will be selling Syria defensive weapons only, rather than offensive ones. Secondly, they will not be selling Syria arms that would change the status quo of full Israeli supremacy over Syria. Thirdly, everything they sell will be paid for in cash, in advance.

The Russians know very well that Syria’s economy is unstable. They know that the Iranians help the Syrians with payments, but they also know that Iran itself is facing great difficulties. Assad swallowed the insult and returned to Damascus.

Why was there no chance for Assad’s “golden package” to begin with? Because Russia is not the Soviet Union. What Assad’s generals failed to grasp is that by invading Georgia Russia caused itself economic and political damage that would take years to repair. Russia is a capitalistic country that relies on its economy, and the economy responded with immense anxiety to the Georgia events.

POSTSCRIPT: Mindful of the disastrous decision to back the Muslims in the Balkans relative to the Kosovo situation and the US-led NATO bombing of Belgrade and dismemberment of Yugoslavia, US Jewish organizations are having second thoughts about joining overly zealous neo- and movement conservatives in recklessly instigating a new anti-Russian crusade.

Sources at MSNBC say Chris Matthews has threatened to sue the network for damaging his career and reputation by pairing him with out-of-control co-anchor Keith Olbermann at the Democratic national Convention, and positioning them outside, where Matthews has been subjected to ridicule and protest, and forced to shout above street noise and cope with constantly blowing hair in his face.

Sources say Matthews, who lives and breathes politics, and has been preparing for the prime DNC assignment for many months, feels that he has been "sabotaged" by the producers and Olbermann.

Iran is spreading the story that the United States is incapable of attacking the Islamist nation without suffering huge losses at US bases across the Middle East--and the destruction of Tel Aviv and other Israeli population centers.

The Iranian line, as advanced by Tehran's diplomats and official journalists, is that the US lacks the air power to knock out Iran's nuclear and missile sites, and will have to commit ground forces, which it can't afford to do for two reasons: (1) the US military is stretched too thin as a result of Iraq and Afghanistan, and (2) the military will "rebel" and refuse to follow orders.

Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is said to be personally involved in directing the disinformation campaign.

Appeasement-minded European diplomats, government officials, and journalists are lapping up the Iranian story, which, conveniently overlooks the fact that the US--and Israel--could use tactical nuclear weapons to wipe out Iran's war-making capabilities and infrastructure.

And the notion of a possible rebellion, or mutiny, by senior US military officers is too fantastic to be credible--while resonating with the region's coup-and-conspiracy culture.

Still, a nagging question remains: absent using nuclear weapons, and setting aside CNN rules of engagement, which would essentially cripple the US and prevent it from blasting away as needed, does the Pentagon have enough bombers and missiles to swiftly and decisively end the Iranian threat for once and all without putting boots on the ground, except, perhaps, for special operations forces who may be needed for targeting and commando missions?

The answer better be a clear and unequivocal yes after all the money that has been spent on the US defense budget--some $500 billion a year, not including the Iraq war--or the country is in greater danger than its citizens and friends have been led to believe.

VIDEO POSTSCRIPT: Click below to screen the new McCain campaign ad about Barack Obama and Iran.

Industry insiders say Matthews is incensed by Keith Olbermann's commentary, which amounts to little more than a nightly adulation of Barack Obama.

Only two days into the event, the obnoxious, out-of-control Olbermann, one of the most outrageous and arrogant personalities to ever make it in TV news, has insulted and over-talked his colleagues to an alarming degree. At one point in Tuesday night's coverage, the over-the-top, toupee-topped Olbermann even used a childish hand gesture to ridicule Matthews, who has inexplicably been relegated to sidekick status on Olbermann's show.

What is to be done about US foreign policy--specifically, the suicidal tendency to attempt to manipulate, accommodate, and appease right-wing political Islam, also known as radical Islam, or Islamism?

It's a decades-old problem; and, contrary to popular belief, the Bush administration has perpetuated it, even after 9/11. The administration has revealingly avoided an all-out war on Islamism, in favor of a confused--and confusing--"War on Terror," which, after seven years, the US is nowhere near winning and is actually in danger of losing. The President himself has praised "peaceful and beautiful" Islam, and Islamist-sponsoring and -exporting Saudi Arabia; and his administration, incredibly, has sought ties with supposed Islamist moderates, including elements of the Iranian mullahocracy and Hamas--notwithstanding the US State Department's formal designation of the Palestinian group as terrorist. The Hamas takeover of Gaza is a case in point: it would not have happened without the State Department's misguided democracy-promotion project and mistaken belief in Muslim--and Islamist--moderation.

That even the worst-ever attacks on US soil did not result in an immediate and permanent end to this perfidious policy is both troubling and mystifying. Understand, as Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama likes to say, that the idea of using Islam, inherited from the British, dates to US support for the Muslim Brotherhood (which spawned Al Qaeda) against Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser during the1950s and the Carter administration's 1979 betrayal and abandonment of the pro-US Shah of Iran and covert aid to anti-Soviet jihadists in Afghanistan--before the Soviet invasion of December 1979. The Reagan administration subsequently escalated the Afghan intervention into the largest-ever US covert operation.

Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, saw Muslim populations as prime targets for influence, and argued for a de facto alliance with Islamist Iran and Islamism in general. He told Time Magazine in January 1979: “An arc of crisis stretches along the shores of the Indian Ocean, with fragile social and political structures in a region of vital importance to us threatened with fragmentation. The resulting political chaos could well be filled by elements hostile to our values and sympathetic to our adversaries.”

Brzezinski made the comment about a year after President Carter had appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommended dumping the Shah, a modernizing monarch, and supporting the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. The Shah, dying of cancer, later commented in exile, “I did not know it then, perhaps I did not want to know? But it is clear to me now that the Americans wanted me out. Clearly this is what the human rights advocates in the State Department wanted. What was I to make of the Administration’s sudden decision to call former Under Secretary of State George Ball to the White House as an adviser on Iran? Ball was among those Americans who wanted to abandon me and ultimately my country.”

Brzezinski's craven attempt to cozy up to Khomeini’s new Islamist regime culminated in and may have actually contributed to the Iranian hostage crisis in November 1979, as more extreme elements within the regime moved to take advantage of perceived American weakness and use the crisis as a rallying point.

Brzezinski learned nothing from the loss of Iran to Islamism. In a January 1998 interview with a French magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur, he conceded that it was US policy to support Islamists to undermine Russia, and confirmed that US covert action drew Russia into starting the Afghan war in 1979.

Asked if he had any regrets, he replied: “Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.”

Asked if he regretted “having given arms and advice to future terrorists,” he responded: “What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”

Responding to the interviewer's observation that Islamism had become a "world menace," Brzezinski said: “Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam….”

Brzezinski, who is again advocating appeasement of Iran, and, also Hamas (in tune with the views of his former boss, Carter, who this year visited and embraced Hamas leaders in Syria), is one of Obama's foreign policy advisers. The Candidate of Change can be expected to look even harder for phantom Islamist moderates.

Which leads this reporter to ask: is there any hope? The answer is ... maybe. One hopes that Obama's opponent in the Presidential contest, Republican John McCain, will live up to his reputation as a political maverick, and advocate a new course--a path to victory over the world menace that the world's greatest democracy should have never allowed to grow and develop, let alone, aided and encouraged.

True to form, and as if to underscore its alliance with Islamist Iran, North Korea is again acting up. AFP reports:

North Korea's decision to stop disabling its atomic plants is a "step backward" and violates a six-nation accord aimed at ending the hardline communist state's nuclear drive, the US State Department said Tuesday.

"This would be a step backward," department spokesman Robert Wood said, reacting to Pyongyang's announcement Tuesday that it has stopped disabling its nuclear plants and would consider restoring them because the United States has failed to remove it from a terrorism blacklist.

"It certainly is in violation of its commitments to the six-party framework, certainly in violation of the principle of action-for-action," Wood said. "It is a concern."

North Korea will never abandon atomic arms. The secretive, Stalinist/Kimist regime has played for time, and is now handing a lame-duck US administration a new foreign policy crisis that will benefit nuclear-arming Iran.

The war against right-wing political Islam, commonly called Islamism, or radical Islam, must be won. Our nation's entire future--the survival of modern civilization, in fact--depends on winning this war.

But it will not be won without help from America's European allies, and, most important, China and Russia, all of which are also threatened by the Islamist foe. Europe is being overrun by Muslim fundamentalists sympathetic to the Islamist cause; and China and Russia have to contend with restive Muslim regions that are hotbeds of terrorism, separatism, and extremism. Russia also borders Islamist Iran, which is pursuing an imperialist foreign policy, and seeking to develop an arsenal of nuclear-tipped, intercontinental ballistic missiles. Heaven help us if Iran achieves its aim.

Given our common enemy, Washington should be working with Beijing and Moscow--not against them. Instead of antagonizing, criticizing, and disparaging the two superpowers, we should be making every effort possible to avoid needless confrontations, crises, and disputes, and actually partnering with China and Russia and praising their accomplishments. The start of China's post-Olympic era and the urgent need to calm things down in Georgia and Poland call for a radical reassessment, a new way forward.

There is a powerful historical precedent, of course: World War II. If, during the 1940s, the United States and Britain could bring themselves to ally with Stalin's Soviet Union in order to utterly destroy and defeat the Axis powers--Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and militarist Japan--the US and Europe can surely forge an alliance with changing China and post-Communist Russia to win what has rightly been termed World War III--and misguidedly named the "War on Terror" by President Bush. (The vintage World War II poster reproduced above is worth 1,000 words.)

Our Islamist enemies--Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaeda--have somehow managed to bridge their differences. It is time the US did the same with its current, potential--and former--allies. The alliance that beat fascism--The Big Three--Russia, Britain, and the US--plus China, which President Roosevelt called "The Four Policemen," must be rebuilt to crush clerical fascism.

Nearly seven years after 9/11, a leader of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked organization received a standing ovation at the Democratic National Convention. Click here and here to read the reports.

The party of FDR and JFK has apparently been infiltrated by Islamist supporters, sympathizers, and fellow-travelers.

Where is the outrage? Is the nation so fed up with the Republican brand that it will tolerate apologists for terrorism--people associated with the ideology and beliefs of the organization that spawned Al Qaeda, Hamas, and the global jihad--in positions of political prominence?

Monday, August 25, 2008

Iran's missile-mad mullahs are solidly behind the country's nuclear-arming maniac-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. That is the meaning of today's news out of Tehran.

1. Iran's Supreme (clerical fascist) Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hamenei, has advised the country's president to prepare for a second four-year term, according to Iranian media media reports. The remarks by Tehran's top turbaned tyrant, who has praised Ahmadinejad in the past, are some of the most supportive yet.

"Do not think that this year is your final year," Khamenei told a meeting with the cabinet on Saturday, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"Work as if you will stay in charge for five years. In other words, imagine that in addition to this year, another four years will be under your management, and plan and act accordingly."

2. Iran is designing a 360 MW nuclear power plant, said Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of the Iran Atomic Energy Organisation.

IRNA quoted him as saying the new power plant, the country's second one, will be constructed in Darkhoin, a city in southwestern province of Khuzestan.

"The site has been chosen and the preparation process is under way," Saeedi said. "Gradually the complementary design phase and its building will begin."

Russia is helping Iran to build the country's first nuclear power plant in the southern port of Bushehr.

It is clear that Iran has no intention of suspending uranium enrichment or compromising on the issue in any meaningful way. On the contrary; the monstrous mullahocracy is advancing rapidly toward acquisition of atomic arms and intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Islamist regime already controls an arsenal of medium- and long-range missiles capable of hitting every Israeli city and town and every American base in the Middle East.

Every day brings fresh proof that the world is not running out of oil, and will continue to run on oil for at least two decades.

The North Sea, for example, has almost as much oil left as has already been extracted, according to a BBC Scotland investigation.

Experts believe between 25 and 30 billion barrels could still be recovered over the next 40 years.

The revelations were made in a landmark BBC Scotland film which shows how the modern history of Scotland is intrinsically linked to the 'black gold' being pumped out of the North Sea.

How long will North Sea oil last? The answer to that depends on many things, including market conditions, future government initiatives and constant technological improvements.

But the proven reserves on some of the region's oldest fields are in fact rising. The Forties Field, one of the biggest and most iconic, is still producing oil 33 years after the first oil was pumped ashore.

VOA reports Russian lawmakers are calling on Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to recognize two breakaway Georgian regions as independent states--a move that would likely further strain Moscow's relations with the West.

All 130 members of Russia's upper house of parliament, or Federation Council, voted Monday to urge recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The lower house, or Duma, is expected to approve the same resolution.

The speaker of the upper house, Sergei Mironov, says South Ossetia and Abkhazia have a right to independence.

Russia has backed separatists in both regions since their break from Tbilisi in the early 1990s, but had stopped short of declaring them independent from Georgia.

Georgia and Russia fought a war earlier this month after Georgia sent in troops on August 7 to try to re-take control of South Ossetia.

On Sunday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for European Union leaders to talk about the crisis in Georgia and re-examine relations with Russia.

The 27 EU leaders will gather in Brussels on September 1. They will also consider an aid package for Georgia. France holds the rotating EU presidency.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

With the selection of Senator Joe Biden as Senator Obama’s vice president, the Democrat’s ticket has now become an even greater gamble for the Jewish community. Throughout his career, Senator Biden has consistently been wrong on Iran and his voting record on Israel has been inconsistent. Like Obama, Biden fundamentally misunderstands the threat posed by an Iran determined to obtain nuclear weapons. Biden has continuously demonstrated poor judgment on Iran. He has voted against significant legislation that would pressure Iran to stop pursuing nuclear weapons. Biden has failed to recognize the serious threat that Iran poses to Israel and the US and its allies in the Middle East.

In 1998, Sen. Biden was one of only four senators to vote against the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act, a bill that punished foreign companies or other entities that sent Iran sensitive missile technology or expertise. Biden was one of the few senators to oppose the bipartisan 2007 Kyl-Lieberman Amendment labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization. In a December 2007 debate, Biden said “Iran is not a nuclear threat to the United States of America.” On MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Biden said he “never believed” Iran had a weapon system under production.

The Jewish community was already gravely concerned with Senator Obama’s naive understanding of the Iranian threat. An Obama-Biden ticket has proven that it is ill-equipped to deal with this threat. By selecting Senator Biden to join his ticket, voting for Senator Obama has now become an even greater risk.

Now that the Beijing Summer Olympic Games are over, intelligence experts are focusing on the 2012 London Games--a security nightmare.

The Olympic site is positioned in the middle of one of Britain’s largest Muslim communities in the east London neighborhood of Stratford.

The problem was underscored in 2005, hours after London was awarded the Games, when the July 7 terrorist bombings shocked Londoners into realizing that they, too, were on the front lines in the war with radical Islam.

China Confidential has learned that among other measures, Britain plans to stock up on the most advanced gear for protection against nuclear, chemical, and biological attacks.

Iran's maniac-in-chief has announced another giant leap for Islamist terror--disguised as a small step for science and technology.

Iran has the technology to develop satellites and will soon send a communication satellite into the orbit, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday, according to the official IRNA news agency.

"Iran has obtained the technology to build satellites and will use its know-how to launch its first remote sensing telecommunication satellite into space," the told a gathering in the central Iranian province of Arak.

Ahmadinejad added that the satellite developed by its scientists is the most advanced technology of its kind.

Western sanctions have been proved ineffective in obstructing Iran's progress in rocketry and space applications, he said in an apparent reference to bans imposed on the country in the backlash of a controversial nuclear power programme.

"You imposed sanctions on Iran, but our nation has now the ability to launch rockets into the orbit which can carry satellites and will shortly use their ability," he said.

Iranian Space Organization chief Reza Taghipour on Wednesday said the country would send its first astronaut in space in the next decade.

Iran earlier this month had announced the successful launch of a homemade satellite-carrier named Safir, which is capable of putting small satellites into low earth orbit.

The Iranian space program provides a cover for the development intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The next time you hear a Muslim fanatic call someone a dog, or read about China's horrific culture of cruelty toward animals, including dogs, think about the dog in this video and all the wonderful dogs you have ever known or met.

Approaching the seventh anniversary of the Islamist attacks of 9/11, the Democratic Party is poised to nominate the first Muslim-born candidate for President of the United States, and also, maybe, the first-ever dual- or triple-citizen Presidential candidate.

Incredibly, Obama is or was a citizen of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country--and a hothouse of Islamist terrorism and Muslim extremism--according to an unearthed and apparently authentic Indonesian school certificate completed by his Indonesian stepfather, a Muslim, who listed Obama's name as Barry Soetoro and religion as Muslim. This ties in with recollections by his Indonesian classmates that he practiced Islam as a child and attended mosque services with his stepfather.

There are credible reports that Obama visited Pakistan as a college student--on an Indonesian passport.

There is also reason to believe that Obama may be a citizen of Kenya, where his cousin, the Prime Minister and opposition leader Raila Odinga, is allied with Islamists. His biological father, a non-practicing Muslim socialist from the African country, may have opted for Kenyan citizenship for his son. Obama campaigned for his cousin during a visit to Kenya; in fact, Obama's intervention in Kenyan politics was extremely controversial locally because of rising violence by Muslim gangs backing the imposition of Islamist law on parts of the country.

In short, it is simply shocking to think that Barry Soetoro, or Barack Hussein Obama--who was born a Muslim according to Islamic religious law, which traces religious identity through the father--could be America's commander-in-chief while Al Qaeda has yet to be defeated, Afghainstan is in danger of falling to the dreaded, Al Qaeda-allied Taliban, and Islamist Iran is on the verge of acquiring atomic arms and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

POSTSCRIPT: Atlas Shrugs reminds us that Obama, who was endorsed by Hamas and supported by Gaza telephone banks and campaign contributions, has promised to sponsor a Muslim nations summit if elected President. The shocking, Jan. 30 AFP dispatch is excerpted below:

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama has told a French magazine he wants to organise a summit of the Muslim world if he makes it to the White House.

Muslim and Western leaders would be invited to the summit for "a discussion about how we can prevent the widening misunderstandings and gaps between the Muslim world and the West," Obama said in the interview to Paris Match.

"I will ask them to join us in battling terrorism but we should also be willing to listen in terms of some of their concerns," he said in the interview to be released Thursday.

Obama, 46, is battling Hillary Clinton to stand as the Democratic party's candidate in the November presidential race.

Obama lived in predominantly Muslim Indonesia with his mother and a Muslim stepfather for four years as a child, but his parents were not religious and he was baptised as a Christian as an adult. [EDITOR'S NOTE: There is no evidence that he was baptized or that he ever formally converted to Christianity, despite his 20-year affiliation with a racist Black Liberation Church headed by his former pastor and spiritual adviser, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who has blamed--and damned--the US for 9/11 and has also published Hamas propaganda.]

In the interview, Obama also said he wanted to shut down the US Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba and end the war in Iraq.

"As long as we are maintaining an occupation in Iraq, it's going to be hard to focus on other things," he said.

With a near flawless Olympic Games behind it, China will turn to its next big challenge: taking back Taiwan.

The ruling Communist Party will not give its democratically self-governed rival too long to decide it it wants to reunify peacefully or at the point of a gun. Any move toward formal independence by Taiwan's government is likely to lead to war.

Not for nothing has China amassed a huge arsenal of ballistic missiles opposite the island nation.

Timing is key. Beijing believes that is it is important to press Taiwan while its ally, the United States, is (a) economically weakened, (b) bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, (c) on the brink of a war with nuclear-arming Iran, and (d) trying to cope and avoid a new cold war with Russia.

Coincidentally, perhaps, the Olympic Games, a history-making, internationally validating achievement for rising China, ended on the 50th anniversary of a major battle between Chinese Communist and Nationalist forces that occurred after the civil war that resulted in the splitting of Taiwan from the mainland.

AP reports:

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou called Sunday for China to help usher in an era of peace with Taiwan as he marked the 50th anniversary of a fierce battle between the archrivals on an outlying island.

Ma made the appeal during a trip to Kinmen, a fortified island also known as Quemoy just miles off China's Xiamen city in Fujian province. He greeted dozens of war veterans and visited bunkers and other battle sites.

"People across the Taiwan Strait must not allow the rerun of any civil war tragedies," Ma said. "We should build on the base of our (recent) reconciliation and usher in wider cooperation."

"Let us turn this killing field into a land of peace for the 21st century," he said.

In 1958, Mao Zedong's forces fired nearly half a million shells at the main Kinmen island and adjacent islets in a 44-day artillery bombardment. With the backing of the United States, Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist troops held on and later built nearby Taiwan into a fortress, resisting Beijing's attempts to put it under its fold.

After once ruling China, the Nationalists were driven to Taiwan in 1949 by Mao's Communist forces. China still claims the self-ruled island is part of its territory to be reunified by force if necessary.

Addressing a solemn ceremony in Kinmen, Ma lauded the soldiers who fought in the 1958 battle.

"In this battle, we proved our determination to safeguard Taiwan and won the respect of the world," Ma said.

The Kinmen bombardment began on Aug. 23, 1958. However, commemorations were postponed for a day by a typhoon.

Since taking office in May, Ma has sought to end hostilities with China by cementing closer economic ties.

In June, Taiwan and China broke a 10-year hiatus to restart negotiations. The sides have subsequently begun regular charter flights and increased the number of Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan.

With hostilities easing, regular ferry services were launched between Kinmen and Xiamen in 2000. Many of Kinmen's 40,000 residents buy daily supplies from nearby Fujian, and many have bought property and sent their children to schools there.

But a proposal to build a seven-mile bridge linking Kinmen and Xiamen has been stalled for years. Taiwan fears the project could be viewed as a symbol of political unity, and most Taiwanese refuse to unite with authoritarian mainland China.

On Sunday, Ma said his administration will consider the bridge project and another Kinmen proposal to obtain water supplies from Fujian.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Iran's top turbaned tyrant, Supreme (clerical fascist) Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Saturday praised the country's government for resisting international pressure on the Islamic republic to halt its controversial nuclear program.

AFP reports from Tehran:

"Some domineering countries and their worthless followers want to get their own way with the Iranian nation, but the nation, the president and the government have stood up to them," he was quoted by state television as saying.

"Adopting an aggressive spirit against world bullies is a sign of the government's loyalty to revolutionary slogans and discourse," it quoted him as saying in a meeting with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his cabinet.

Iran risks a fourth round of UN sanctions for failing to give a clear response to an incentives offer by six world powers in return for halting uranium enrichment, a process to produce nuclear fuel that can also make the core of an atomic bomb.

Iran says it has the right, as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to enrich uranium and insists that its atomic programme is aimed solely at generating energy for a growing population.

The United States, which has been pushing for tougher sanctions, has never ruled out a military option to thwart Iran's nuclear drive.

Ahmadinejad on Saturday dismissed the impact of sanctions, citing last Sunday's launch of a home-produced missile that Tehran says can put a satellite into orbit.

"You have imposed sanctions on us, but today young people in this land do not need your help to have a satellite-carrying missile," he told a rally in the central city of Arak carried live on state television.

"Iran does not need you in any way," he said, vowing to launch the country's first communications satellite soon.

A top Russian general--who recently threatened to attack Poland with nuclear arms--says his forces will remain in parts of Georgia. He also accuses Tbilisi of preparing a new wave of attacks in South Ossetia.

Russian Deputy Chief of General Staff Col.-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn told reporters in Moscow Saturday that his country's forces will continue to patrol the Black Sea port city of Poti, as well as other areas that lie outside a designated security zone.

Nogovitsyn also warned that Russia could increase the size of its force in Georgia if the United States begins to help Georgia rebuild its military.

Accuses Georgia of Planning New Attacks

The general defended Russia's actions, saying they were in agreement with the terms of a French-brokered cease-fire. He also accused Georgia's special services of preparing further actions in South Ossetia.

Earlier, Georgian officials and witnesses said Russian forces are still entrenched north of the key city of Gori and near the town of Senaki.

Hundreds of Georgians have been taking to the streets to express their unhappiness with Russia's continued presence, waving flags near Russian posts in Gori and Poti.

The Georgian parliament voted unanimously Saturday to extend emergency wartime powers for President Mikheil Saakashvili for another 15 days.

Meanwhile, the leader of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, says he will visit Moscow Saturday.

Kokoity says he will ask Russia to recognize South Ossetia's independence.

Threatened Poland with Possible Nuclear Strikes

Last Friday, Nogovitsyn told reporters that Poland's agreement to accept a US missile interceptor base exposes the ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons.

It was the strongest threat that Russia has issued against the plans to put missile defense elements in former Soviet satellite nations.

Poland and the US last Thursday signed a deal for Poland to accept a missile interceptor base as part of a system the US says is aimed at blocking attacks by rogue nations. Moscow contends it is aimed at Russia's missile force.

"Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike—100 percent," Nogovitsyn said.

He added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia's military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons "against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them."

Nogovitsyn said that would include elements of strategic deterrence systems.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Fox News reports from Jakarta that "hundreds of Christian theology students have been living in tents since a mob of angry Muslim neighbors stormed their campus last month wielding bamboo spears and hurling Molotov cocktails."

The incident comes amid growing concern that Indonesia's tradition of religious tolerance is under threat from Islamic hard-liners.

In talks since the attack, the Arastamar Evangelical School of Theology has reluctantly agreed to shut its 20-year-old campus in east Jakarta, accepting an offer this week to move to a small office building on the other side of the Indonesian capital.

"Why should we be forced from our house while our attackers can walk freely?" asked the Rev. Matheus Mangentang, chairman of the 1,400-student school.

The government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which relies on the support of Islamic parties in Parliament, is struggling to balance deep Islamic traditions and a secular constitution. With elections coming next April, the government seems unwilling to defend religious minorities, lest it be portrayed as anti-Islamic in what is the world's most populous Muslim-majority country.

The July 25 attack, which injured 18 students, was the culmination of years of simmering tensions between the school and residents of the Kampung Pulo neighborhood.

Click here to continue reading this article, which is especially important in light of documentary evidence that the presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama (or Barry Soetoro) may hold dual US and Indonesian citizenship.

Considering Iran, imagine how many innocent lives would have been saved had the United States been able to A-bomb Berlin at the beginning of World War II.

Considering Iran, imagine how many innocent lives would have been saved had the national debate in the US after 9/11 been between hawks who wanted to respond with nuclear weapons and doves who merely wanted to use conventional weapons to bomb the Islamist menace back into the Stone Age. The war against radical Islam would have been won in a matter of weeks or months. Instead, it has dragged on for a staggering seven years--and the US, Israel, and Europe are actually in danger of coming under Islamist nuclear attack in the near future.

Considering Iran, imagine how many innocent lives would have been saved had the US not allowed the country to fall to the Islamists in 1979, had the Carter administration not betrayed and abandoned the pro-US Shah in a craven attempt to curry favor with the clerical fascist leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (whom Jimmy Carter's UN envoy, Andrew Young, praised as "a saint.")

Considering Iran, imagine if our leaders had courage and common sense. It would be a different Middle East--and a different world.

Enough said. There is no more time to hesitate and debate. The choice, tragically, is between mass death in Iran or mass death in Israel and the US. Every day--every hour, maybe--matters.

There is no diplomatic solution to the problem of nuclear-arming, Islamist Iran (and Islamism in general). There is only a military solution. And it must be swift, merciless, and decisive.

Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said on Tuesday that the Iranian armed forces are ready to counter any surprise attack by the enemies with a crushing response.

"The vigilant Iranian armed forces are now monitoring all military movements in the region round the clock," Najjar said.

"Iran is a powerful country in the region with high military might," he said, adding that recent war games conducted by the armed forces have demonstrated the capabilities of Iranian forces for the world.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

The blogosphere is buzzing. But the Obama campaign is keeping silent, refusing to answer some of the most vexing questions about the background and identity of The Candidate of Change.

Was Barack Obama born in the United States? Is the Obama birth certificate that was leaked to a left-wing website authentic?

What is his legal name? Is it Barack Hussein Obama II, the name on the leaked birth certificate, or Barack Obama, Jr., or Barack Obama, or Barry Soetoro?

Is Obama a dual or a triple citizen? Is he now or has he ever been an Indonesian citizen and/or a Kenyan citizen?

Obama traveled to Pakistan as a college student in the 1980s. Did he use an Indonesian passport or a Kenyan passport instead of a US passport to enter Pakistan?

Obama was born a Muslim according to Islamic religious law, which traces a person's religious identity through the father. And a seemingly authentic Indonesian school registration certificate lists Obama's religion as Muslim (and his citizenship as Indonesian). Did he practice Islam as a child, as his Indonesian friends and classmates have said? Did Obama ever formally convert to Christianity? Is he an apostate according to Islamic religious law?

Obama's cousin, Kenyan Prime Minister and opposition leader Raila Odinga, has allied himself with Islamists seeking to impose Islamic religious law on parts of Kenya. Does Obama approve of this alliance? How close is he to his cousin? Why did Obama campaign for his cousin during a visit to Kenya?

The Iranian issue boils down to intentions and timing. At a minimum, Iran intends to destroy Israel and drive the United States from the Middle East; and time is working for, not against, the nuclear-arming, oil-rich, Islamist nation.

In retrospect, the US took way too long to end the Iranian Islamist threat--30 years too long, to be exact. Washington should never have allowed the Islamists to come to power in Iran in the first place; the craven Carter administration should never have betrayed Iran's Shah, a staunch US ally and modernizing monarch. Not only have three decades of US appeasement and accommodation of Islamist Iran and Islamism in general failed to prevent war; the disastrous policy has made war inevitable--on Iran's terms. By now, this should be obvious to everyone who follows international relations--even to the pro-appeasement Democratic party leadership and their European friends.

Accent on should be. Unfortunately for the US and Israel, the appeasers are working overtime to protect Iran; and the enemy is taking maximum advantage of the opportunity. The terrorist-sponsoring, turbaned tyranny is playing with words in order to play for time, using every stalling tactic and diplomatic maneuver in its playbook to sustain and stretch out the pointless negotiations over its menacing uranium enrichment program. The strategy is working; the regime may actually be only months away from a breakthrough that will allow it to produce nuclear bombs and warheads.

To be fair, there is more to the story than Democratic stupidity and weakness. Iran has benefitted enormously from a bipartisan US tendency to see Muslim (and Arab) moderates where none really exist. There are many moderates in Iran; but they have no power. Among the powers that be in Iran, there are only different degrees of Islamist extremism.

The situation recalls Nazi Germany. Almost up until the end of World War II, there were members of the foreign policy establishments of the US and Great Britain who naively (or perfidiously) pressed for a negotiated peace with supposed Nazi moderates. There were no moderates, of course, at least, not in any meaningful sense of the word. Belief in their existence was a dangerous delusion, one that US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and their top advisers and military commanders thankfully resisted. Satisfied with nothing less than total victory, the Allies won the war, delivering mass death to the genocidal Nazis and their Axis partners until they were utterly destroyed and defeated.

Similarly, today, there are influential people in the US who call for patience and dialogue with the Islamist devil. (Liberals love to dialogue.) The presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, is audacious enough to use the oxymoronic term, "aggressive diplomacy," offering to meet unconditionally with Iran's Hitlerian, Holocaust-denying maniac-in-chief, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Obama is worse than dangerously delusional regarding Iran; his approach could constitute a fatal error, because Iran, in addition to developing nuclear weapons, seeks an arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles to add to its already frighteningly formidable arsenal of medium- and long-range ballistic missiles, and the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons the regime has developed and has also acquired from its anti-American, secular, Arab ally, Syria.

The latter country is also an ally of Russia, which makes the situation even more serious. There are ominous reports of Russian warships and nuclear submarines heading toward Syria, and credible reports that Moscow plans to station nuclear missiles in the country to threaten the US and Israel. Flush with newly minted petrodollars, eager to push back against the US for its expansion of NATO and support for former Soviet satellites and republics, resurgent Russia is overreaching beyond its near abroad, or sphere of influence, and is seemingly bent on overthrowing the international status quo. It is taking foreign policy risks not seen since the Stalinist era.

Nobody can comfortably predict how the new superpower struggle will play out; but the winners could be Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus (and Iran's Islamist Lebanese proxy and Syrian ally, Hezbollah, which is bristling with an estimated 40,000 rockets). The US and Israel could end up as losers; and the losses could be catastrophic. Israel, which is already within range of Iranian, Syrian, and Hezbollah missiles, is a "one-bomb country" in nuclear terms. US bases across the Middle East could come under devastating Iranian bombardment. And the US homeland could eventually be hit by Iranian nuclear missiles. In addition to working on ICBMs, Iran, with North Korean assistance, has been testing sea-based missile launch systems--i.e. concealed systems for firing ballistic missiles from cargo ships. There is no known defense against this threat to US coastal cities.

On the other side of the equation, the US has staggering military capabilities; Israel's air force is still the strongest in the region; and Israel is a significant nuclear power. But Israel's nuclear deterrent would be neutralized by Iran's acquisition of atomic arms and the installation of Russian nuclear missiles in Syria. Again, little Israel, unlike Iran, is a one-bomb country.

So now is the time for Israel and the US to swiftly and decisively attack Iran. If the US won't go along, Israel will have to do it alone, and use any and all means necessary to protect its citizens.

a powerful Russian naval contingent, led by the aircraft carrier , left Murmansk on the Barents Sea Aug. 18 to dock at the Syrian Mediterranean port of Tartus Saturday, Aug. 23. It includes the Russian Navy’s biggest missile cruiser and at least four nuclear missile submarines.

At the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Syrian president Bashar Assad told reporters Thursday, Aug. 21, that he is considering a Russian request to deploy missiles in his country in view of Russian-Western tensions over the Georgian conflict, which he said had polarized East and West anew.

Assad signaled he would also be representing Tehran’s interests in his talks with Russian leaders. Jordan’s King Abdullah is on his way to join them later in the day.

Before the Russian flotilla departed Murmansk, Assad is reported by our sources as having given the nod for Tartus port’s conversion into a permanent Middle East base for Russia’s nuclear-armed warships.

Assad’s arrival coincided with a visit by a large Syrian military delegation Thursday at the Russian weapons manufacturing giant, the Kalinin Machines Plant, east of Moscow. DEBKAfile’s military sources report that this plant makes sophisticated anti-air missile systems, including the S-300 and the BUK M, for which Damascus is bidding.

The Syrian ruler has said he is seeking closer military cooperation with Russia. The deal emerging from his visit is expected to cover the Russian Navy’s use of Tartus in return for a mutual defense accord providing Syria with a Russian nuclear umbrella and generous terms for his arms purchases.

Aug. 17, DEBKAfile first revealed Russia’s planned nuclear military deployments in the Middle East and Baltic to punish America for its missile deal with Poland and Georgia's attack in South Ossetia. They would included the installation of Iskandar surface missiles in Syria and Kaliningrad.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Investor's Business Dailycomments and reports on Barack Obama's Communist backing--at home and abroad. IBD:

Among Obama's biggest admirers, for example, is one Pepe Lozano. Unknown at the national level, Lozano is more of a small-time agitator, just as Obama was in his community organizing days in Chicago. Maybe that explains part of the attraction.

But it's more likely that Lozano, a leader in the Chicago Young Communist League and an editorial board member of the People's Weekly World, newspaper of the Communist Party USA, finds that Obama is the communist party's best hope because of the junior senator's far-left positions.

"This is a history-making process," Lozano told a Chicago gathering of about 250 in June, "and we will be missing it if we don't do all we can to elect Barack Obama president."

The next month, the People's Weekly World editorialized in favor of Obama, calling his a "transformative candidacy that would advance progressive politics for the long term."

The communist support is nothing new, however. Joel Wendland, managing editor of Political Affairs: Marxist Thought Online, another CPUSA magazine, suggested in February that Obama could be "the people's president."

Also in February, Political Affairs editor Terri Albano talked about how the "kind of upsurge" surrounding Obama "comes around just once in a lifetime. I hope for all progressives — each of us — (to) get involved. Don't stand on the sidelines. Be active. Don't let history pass you by."

While communists are endorsing Obama, the Communist Party USA isn't. But that's not because it doesn't like Obama. The CPUSA simply does not endorse candidates. Yet it issued what could be called a non-endorsement endorsement of Obama in March, saying "his campaign has the clearest message of unity and progressive change."

"This election can begin to turn the tide: It can help bring universal health care, save the environment and start the restoration of our democratic rights," the group said. "This election can strengthen democracy for all."

If Obama is smarting because he didn't get an official Communist Party USA endorsement, maybe he will be mollified by the approval of an old communist to the south. Fidel Castro in the spring wrote in the state newspaper Granma that Obama is "the most progressive candidate for the U.S. presidency."

That's an endorsement that anyone who doesn't have a socialist agenda should be ashamed of, especially given Castro's murder and intimidation of his foes and his repeated, egregious human rights violations of average Cuban citizens.

But from what we can tell, Obama has not rejected Castro's support. What we can tell, though, is that when Obama says he stands for change, he could be talking about erasing facts that he considers to be politically damaging.

Last month he scrubbed clean from his Web site evidence that he opposed the successful Iraq surge, and last winter he deleted the endorsement of the extremist Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had become a political liability.

But despite his campaign's penchant for cyberhygiene, the community blog on his own Web site still has an entry that's rather incriminating: "This group is for self-proclaimed Marxists/Communists/Socialists for the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. . . . We support Barack Obama because he knows what is best for the people!" The fact that it can still be found on Obama's official site would indicate that the campaign has no problem with it — and that it might even appreciate the endorsement.

The current campaign is not Obama's first association with groups that promote socialism or its more stringent ideological cousin, communism.

In 1995, he sought the endorsement of the New Party for his 1996 state Senate candidacy. The party — a collection of anti-capitalist ex-communists and socialists that disbanded in 1998 after six years of trying to push the Democratic Party even further left — gladly gave Obama its support.

Obama also was endorsed in that election by the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist group in the U.S. While the name might sound benign, the DSA has a poisonous agenda. Its goal is to establish "an openly socialist presence in American communities and politics" and is committed to "restructuring society."

Members "are socialists because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo."

Just as it should be no surprise that a Che Guevara poster was found hanging in an Obama campaign office, it would not be a shock to see an Obama poster on a wall in the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism's headquarters.

Mark Solomon, the group's national co-chair, wrote in a virtual endorsement in February that Obama "is an attractive, articulate and talented politician" whose "campaign has sparked a powerful surge."

But that would be expected, since this group, which branched off from the Communist Party USA in 1991, organized the October 2002 rally in which Obama criticized the U.S. invasion of Iraq — while still serving as a state senator in Illinois. The ties between Obama and the committees go back years.

Across the Atlantic, the Party of European Socialists also has given its blessing.

President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen says that "Obama is the choice for change and renewal. He gives hope to millions of Americans and Europeans for a fairer world. . . . Progressive Europeans are united in hope that Barack Obama will be the new president following the U.S. elections."

Obama supporters might excuse the candidate's support from communists, Marxists and socialists, saying he is the only alternative since these groups would never support the Republican nominee. (Which is entirely correct and indicative of the Democratic Party's continuing decline into the pit of democratic socialism.)

But the truth is, these groups usually reserve their endorsements and support for fringe candidates, not someone from a major party. That's not the case this time around. They seem to have their man.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

As if to confirm its critics' worst suspicions, resurgent Russia seems to be playing the Arab card. Haaretz reports:

Syrian President Bashar Assad is scheduled to leave for Russia on Thursday for a two-day visit that has been described by analysts as important at a time when Moscow may be considering closer ties with the Arab world.

Syrian media have described Assad's visit to Moscow as "a working visit" to discuss closer ties in a variety of unspecified areas.

A number of reports in recent months have mentioned large arms deals between Russia and Syria, including advanced anti-aircraft missile systems.

Russian and Syrian analysts have said that Israel's military assistance to Georgia has paved the way for a particularly successful visit for the Syrian president, whose country has taken a clear stance on the side of Moscow in the recent conflict in the Caucasus.

China's economy is now only a fourth the size of the $14 trillion U.S. economy. But given plausible growth rates in both countries, China's output will exceed America's in the 2020s, projects Goldman Sachs.

But this is the wrong worry. By itself, a richer China does not make America poorer. Indeed, because there are so many more Chinese than Americans, average Chinese living standards may lag behind ours indefinitely. By Goldman's projections, average American incomes will still be twice Chinese incomes in 2050.

The real threat from China lies elsewhere. It is that China will destabilize the world economy. It will distort trade, foster huge financial imbalances and trigger a contentious competition for scarce raw materials.

Xinhua reported Tuesday that Jordan and China signed a nuclear agreement, "paving ways for future cooperation on peaceful uses of nuclear energy, especially on electricity generation and water desalination."

Under the agreement, the official Chinese news agency said, the two sides will conduct cooperation and exchange on basic and applied researches, nuclear plant designing, constructing and operating, mineral exploration and processing among other areas.

The pact was signed by China's ambassador to Jordan Gong Xiaosheng and Chairman of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission Khaled Touqan.

Unlike its oil-rich, Arab neighbors, Jordan lacks energy resources. It depends on imports for 95 percent of its energy consumption, which annually costs nearly a quarter of its revenue, according to official data.

Jordan's King Abdullah II announced a civil nuclear energy program in January 2007, saying the country was seeking an alternative energy to generate electricity and desalinate seawater.

Under the strategy, a nuclear plant will be set up by 2015 and nuclear power is expected to make up 30 percent of its energy production by 2030.

Voice of America (VOA) has published the following editorial, which, VOA says, reflects the views of the US government.

Russia’s military incursion into the sovereign nation of Georgia, which began on August 8th, has strained relations between Russia and the United States. Observers speculate the strain could damage attempts to work together to confront the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program--a threat which faces Russia as well as the United States.

The United Nations Security Council, whose permanent members include Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, has adopted three resolutions imposing legally binding sanctions on Iran for its refusal to fully suspend its proliferation sensitive nuclear activities.

After Iran this month failed to provide a clear, positive response to the refreshed package of incentives offered to it by the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany, the so called P-5+1 countries agreed to begin discussions on a fourth round of UN sanctions.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Russia’s involvement in trying to stop Iran from procuring the technologies necessary for a nuclear weapon is in Russia’s own interest:

“If indeed Russia is interested in a Middle East that is stable, if indeed Russia is interested in a Middle East in which the kinds of activities that we have promoted together in the Quartet [Russia, the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations] are going to have any chance, then clearly, it’s not going to be a Middle East in which there’s an Iran with a nuclear weapon. And I think that’s why Russia is involved in efforts to stop Iran from violating the Security Council resolutions that have been passed.”

“Let’s be very clear whose interests are being served by the partnership that Russia and the United States have engaged in on Iran,” said Secretary of State Rice. “It’s not a favor to the United States.”

Just as the FBI for many years denied the existence of organized crime, some US officials are downplaying the significance of the Iranian satellite launch.

US credibility in this regard is at an all-time low after the attempts to minimize and ridicule North Korea's atomic and rocketry achievements. There is a bureaucratic rationale to denial; admitting an enemy's success is tantamount to admitting failure.

Reuters reports:

Iran's attempted satellite launch was a failure that fell far short of claimed successes, U.S. security officials said on Tuesday, but an analyst said the test still marked progress toward a potential weapon.

"The attempted launch failed," a U.S. intelligence official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The vehicle failed shortly after liftoff and in no way reached its intended position," the official said. "It could be characterized as a dramatic failure."

A U.S. defense official gave a similar characterization of the test as unsuccessful.

But Charles Vick, a senior analyst for GlobalSecurity.org research group, said Iran appeared to have succeeded in igniting the second stage of its booster rocket and gained data that will help it perfect its launch system. The technology could also be used to develop a rocket capable of carrying nuclear weapons that could strike Europe or China, he said.

He based his assessments of the test on photographs, public reporting and earlier analyses.

"They're not there yet and that's to be expected but this is a step forward that has implications strategically," Vick said.

Meanwhile, the Indo-Asian News Service reported Tuesday that Iran has asked its energy companies to look for potential sites to set up more nuclear power plants in the country.

The news service quoted Ahmad Fayyazbakhsh, deputy chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation and head of a state-owned nuclear energy production company, as saying that his company has signed an agreement with six local companies to set up nuclear power plants.

These companies were asked to look for potential sites within a year for setting up new nuclear power plants, Iran's state run IRNA news agency Tuesday quoted the official as saying.

The construction of the power plants would begin after finalising the sites, Fayyazbakhsh said.

Earlier, 62 foreign and 58 Iranian companies had applied for the work, but the six Iranian companies won the bid, he added.

Russia is helping Iran to build its first nuclear power plant in the country's southern port of Bushehr. The plant was expected to start its operation early this year, but was postponed due to disputes over payment.